Despite technological advances, AI’s reputation in the real world is deteriorating. On Wednesday, Axios reported that the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent a memo to major AI companies warning that their U.S. data centers were hurting the party’s chances in the crucial Ohio election. At the same time, Pew Research released a survey that found Americans’ anxiety about AI is increasing, with 52% saying they feel “more anxious than excited” about the increased use of AI in daily life, up from 37% in 2021.
In a recent CNBC poll of 18- to 34-year-olds that named nine top leaders in the AI industry, a majority of respondents said they did not trust them to “act responsibly” when it comes to AI. An Economist/YouGov poll in May found that more than 70% of Americans think AI is progressing too fast. The list goes on.
All that frustration is starting to show up on the balance sheet. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the technology companies, facing a public relations crisis over plans to build AI data centers across the United States, have agreed to enhance the deal, including offering job guarantees, investments in clean water and other local perks. (In one case, it also included a $50,000 bonus for teachers in a Louisiana parish.)
The underlying sentiment common to these stories is that consumers do not understand how AI is improving their lives, yet are still being asked to bear the costs. For an industry that has raised hundreds of billions of dollars on the promise of AI’s inevitability, deteriorating public sentiment is becoming a business problem, not just a public relations gaffe, and industry leaders are beginning to realize that.
Today, many consumers think of AI in narrower terms, such as AI chatbots and AI search experiences (like AI-enabled Google). Whether they want it or not, they are seeing AI capabilities infiltrate everyday products, from email to television. They see AI as a tool to help kids cheat in school, including at university level, raising questions about the value of degrees. They hear stories of AI bots being trained on troves of intellectual property belonging to others, allowing AI to be used to create art, video, music, and writing that have historically been produced by humans.
It’s no surprise, then, that AI appears to be facing more consumer backlash than other innovative technologies in similar stages of adoption, such as the iPhone, personal computers, or even the Internet itself.
But some are still surprised by the consumer response. They believed that adoption of AI would lead to acceptance and that as AI becomes part of the majority of technology products and services, its ubiquity would eventually lead to consumers having positive feelings towards the technology.
In fact, consumer trends are pointing in the opposite direction. Young people in particular are showing an interest in retro technology, from dumb phones to point-and-shoot cameras to tape decks and CD players. AI-free, algorithm-free classic iPods are selling for top dollar on eBay. So-called “grandma hobbies” are suddenly everywhere: quilting, knitting, jigsaw puzzles, cards, games like mahjong. In-person social gatherings and activities, such as running clubs, are beginning to trump online dating.
Some in Silicon Valley may think this is due to messaging issues. Executives may need to do a better job of explaining AI to consumers so that people can fully understand its benefits.
But the reality is that while consumers are fully aware of the current state of AI, they may not think the trade-off is worth it. Skepticism hardens when the benefit on offer is not an automated job with higher pay or a shorter work week, but the threat of job loss combined with AI features that consumers find far less appealing (like compiled web pages or chatty television).
Some people in the industry have noticed this.
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky acknowledged on a recent podcast that the AI backlash is real, and that it largely has to do with the fact that the industry isn’t shipping products that “common people” like.
“I think part of the problem with the narrative is that we’re not talking about AI correctly,” Chesky said. “But part of it is that we really need to develop more products that the average person can use and say, ‘I love AI because it gives me on-demand doctor’s visits, but I can’t have that. I can’t afford that.'” So I think we need to do more regularly. ”
Even Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, one of the industry’s most prominent leaders, acknowledged in a post on X this week that negative public perceptions of AI are a “huge problem” and fundamentally a “crisis of trust.” He said people don’t trust businesses, governments and the technology industry because they “suspect we’re inventing new ways to screw with them.”
The solution, he says, is to fulfill the promise of AI, such as curing cancer.
“I think the most accurate criticism of AI companies, including Anthropic, is that we have yet to deliver on our great promise to benefit the world. That’s entirely our fault,” he said.
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